


Wild at Heart

by fireheart93



Series: Life's a Circus (so why not join one) [4]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:10:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1538882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireheart93/pseuds/fireheart93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dexter Grif was not supposed to be a circus performer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wild at Heart

Dexter Grif was not supposed to be a circus performer.

He has no idea what he should have been, but he’s reasonably certain it’s not this. His life was not supposed to include wild animals, a wilder boss and a kiss-ass nerd for a not-best-friend. If his dad had had his way he would have ended up in the military, but when he was twelve his Mom had left to join the circus without leaving a note. His Dad was furious, he remembers, going on trips away for days, trying to hunt her down, leaving Dexter to watch Kaikaina. That was rough but it could have been worse, at least their Dad didn’t take his anger out on them, at least not at first. But as time went on their Dad stopped looking for their Mom and started looking for bars instead. From that point on the story went much as you would expect, their dad coming home and hitting his son, Dexter deliberately acting out so he wouldn’t hurt Kai. Eventually Dexter got used to the bruises, the shouting, to going hungry so Kaikaina could eat.

And then came his fifteenth birthday.

His dad wasn’t around but that just made the day better. He got up, made breakfast for him and Kai, smiled genuinely when he opened the card she had made him and looked forward to a day of doing nothing much. When he heard the post arrive he wasn’t expecting anything, much less an envelope with his name on it. He opened it and found a postcard with a picture of a big top and the name of a circus emblazoned across the top of it. He flipped it over and felt his breath catch in his throat. There was an address, a name, and one sentence scrawled across the back. The name was his mother’s. The sentence read:

‘If you come and find me, bring your sister.’

Dexter and Kaikaina were gone by the end of the day.

Growing up in the circus with their Mom wasn’t ideal but it was better than staying with their father. Dexter never quite felt safe, she had left them before and could do so again, but as time went on he began to feel more secure. He fell in with the animal trainers, learning to love the big cats in particular, spending sunny afternoons napping next to their cages in the sun. He made himself useful enough, but for the first time in three years he didn’t have to work to put food on the table and there were other people to watch Kai. He devoted his time to exploring his freedom to be lazy, feeling his need to care slip away little by little until he barely cared at all. And it was glorious. His Mom left the circus again when he was twenty, settling down with a tightrope walker, but he barely noticed. Kai was sixteen and beginning to explore all the wonderful depravities the world had to offer but as long as she came home every night Dexter didn’t see why it was his problem.

But one night she didn’t come home.

It was their last night in town. She had gone out after a show but wasn’t back by morning. So Dexter had a choice, stay with the circus or look for his sister.

He almost left.   
But he didn’t.

When he found her he was furious. The screaming match that followed took all his energy, so when she stormed down to the train station he didn’t follow. He went down an hour later, showed her picture and found out she got on a train headed north. So he followed her. They did this dance for two months, he would find her, they would argue, she would leave and he would follow, always an hour or two behind. They criss-crossed the country, until one day he arrived at a station to find her sat waiting for him. She said she was eighteen and old enough to look after herself. She said she didn’t need him following her anymore. She said she didn’t want him on her tail. She told him to leave her alone. And then she walked away.

After that Dexter drifted.

He didn’t start drinking. He had a few anonymous hook-ups but not as many as he would later pretend. He spent days at a time in shitty motel rooms, watching daytime TV and eating junk. But one day his money ran out. He walked through the backwater town he had washed up in, trying to work up the energy to worry about his situation when he saw the oh-so familiar tent-tops just beyond the houses.

He didn’t run there, but only because he never ran anywhere. 

The Circus already had an animal act, run by an older man who was either ex-military or had some sort of inferiority complex. His assistant was a gangly young man who seemed to worship the ground Sarge walked on. Grif would hate him if it had been worth the effort. But in all honesty he was glad to be back in the familiar world of the circus, the smell of popcorn and straw, the odd feeling of security and danger that came from napping with big cats that could bit your head off in a heartbeat. And Simmons wasn’t too bad; at least he let Grif nap while he did all the work, though he bitched about it for hours later. 

And life settled back into the old, familiar routine.

Grif performed now, because Sarge didn’t give him a choice. It surprised him, how much he enjoyed standing in front of the crowd, encouraging the animals to show off, but he’d never let Simmons know that. Simmons almost shone in the ring, suit perfect, standing in sharp contrast to Grif’s perpetually scruffy air. Anyone watching him perform would never imagine how nervous Simmons was before every show, hands shaking before every performance, pacing up and down between the animal cages. It drove Grif mad every time, but no amount of shouting would get him to stop. 

So one day Grif takes matters, quite literally into his own hands. 

Simmons is pacing, as usual, and Grif is sitting in a deck chair in front of the puma cage.  
“Dude, stop pacing, you’re disturbing Chupa-thingy,” Grif said.  
“Her name is not Chupa-thingy,” Simmons says, but he didn’t stop pacing. Grif sighes loudly.  
“I don’t know why you’re pacing. You’ve done this hundreds of times.”  
“But what if something goes wrong? What if Sarge gets hurt? What if you get hurt?”  
“Thanks for remembering me,” Grif scoffs, “I’m surprised you have enough worry to spare for little old me, after all you spend on Sarge.”  
“Worry is not a finite resource,” Simmons says, still pacing and wringing his hands. Something in Grif snaps. With energy he hasn’t felt in years he throws himself to his feet and strides over to Simmons, grabbing his hands, forcing him to stop.  
“Let go of me, fatass,” Simmons struggles but Grif holds on.  
“No,” Grif says. “Everything is going to be fine. And if something goes wrong we’ll still be fine.”  
“How do you know that?” Simmons asks, voice small. Grif thinks back on everything that’s happened to him, to the things he’s fairly sure happened to Simmons, and smiles.

“Because we’re like cats, we always land on our feet. We’re lucky like that.”

The smile on Simmons’ face as the tension drains from his shoulders makes the chick-flick moment worth it.


End file.
